I do see your point that people may play longer than they should when overmatched if they are completely numb to results and don't think about them.

But I didn't say I was intellectually numb to downswings. I try to process the game as calmly and rationally as possible. If I'm dwelling for X minutes on a hand where I got coolered, my play for those X minutes will be relatively poor as my focus is diverted from the game. Diversion of focus could cause me to miss crucial actions, make mistakes, and lose more money. If my focus is diverted AND I'm emotionally in pain, then I'm going to play horribly.

I don't think there is necessarily any positive correlation between "feeling the pain" and trying harder to improve. This may be the case for you and perhaps many poker players, but it seems more likely that "feeling the pain" will generally lead to tilt and more losses and may become a vicious circle. And for many people, losing large amounts of money may lead them to self-destructive behaviors, which is particularly dangerous for a professional gambler who keeps large amounts of cash on hand but must maintain the discipline not to touch it except as bankroll.

Let me be clear: My response when I lose a big hand is not "oh well, I lost another big hand." My response is "Did I do anything wrong? Let's review. I got the money in on the turn with top set. Villain called with a weak flush draw and hit. I played the hand fine so I'm moving on." If the answer to "Did I do anything wrong?" is not crystal clear within a few seconds, I'll write the hand down and process it later. If the answer to "Did I do anything wrong?" is "It's very possible" then I step away from the table for a minute to think about the hand and evaluate whether I should remain in the game. There is no advantage to being emotional about this process.

For the record, I used the term "emotionally numb" largely because I just finished reading "The Course" and that's how Ed Miller defines this crucial skill: emotional numbing. He covers the many pitfalls of running good and running bad, and his solution is to develop techniques to avoid emotional reactions to poker. But I have always tried to minimize emotional reactions to my results, and did so successfully as an online player. Ed Miller's chapter on "emotional numbing" as a technique for dealing with variance just reinforces my views about this.

Put simply, the "emotional numbing" is just saying that your poker playing span will be a roller coaster no matter how you play (even when you do everything right), so learn to accept that, keep trying to maker the best decisions possible, and hopefully your roller coaster will go up and down while slowly but surely going up.

While I'm no pro, I do think it's good to lose somewhat often early in your career because it does force you to re-focus and pin down your mistakes and play better overall.

anyone knows how many players playing and payouts on $175 Saturday tournament?

The total pool normally breaks 10k.

Add another person who is gonna try to grind out a living at Winstar. Been unemployed for the last few months and figure I might as well try and grind a few bucks an hour instead of wasting away doing nothing. Figure I can shoot for jobs in Dallas and back home while I'm down there, just wish I'd pulled the trigger a couple months ago instead of waiting. You guys seemed to cover everything with the last guys' question so I just figured I'd just say waddup since I got through all the reading.

GVood luck to you. Keep us posted on how you do, your thoughts on the room, etc. I always like to hear about others' experiences at Winstar.

Yeah good luck. I kind of hate that place since I ran super bad the entire 50 hours I played at Winstar. And these were my first 50 hours playing live. I had 1 of 6 days where I ran close to EV (won like $100 over 5 hours) and the rest were -3 to -4sigma. Losing all-ins as 97% favorites three times. Ugh. Anyway I'll be going to Tampa (not because I ran bad at Winstar--I just like it better). For the record I do think the players at Winstar are quite bad and solidly beatable, but there's a big difference between Monday-Wednesday and Thursday-Sunday so you probably want to play during the latter period. My weekday games were mostly regs. They weren't all good, but they weren't as bad as the players that show up on the weekend.

That's the same pretty much anywhere and its just one more reason why some guys get a rude awakening when they "go pro". They've been working a real job and then playing poker now and then on weekends or evenings, but when they need to starting putting in full time hours, they normally need to play more regular hours and their win rates will drop somewhat from what they are used to.

I would expect the discrepancy between weekdays and weekends is much larger at Winstar than most places because of its remote location. People have to drive pretty far so they can't just swing by for a few hours during the week like people in Vegas or LA or Miami etc.

Actually I KNOW there's more of a difference between Winstar's weekdays/weekends than Seminole Hard Rock Tampa, as well as several other casinos I've been tracking obsessively. Just watch the number of tables that fill up at different times on Bravo. It's a Thursday, one of the better weekdays for Winstar. But right now there are 18/46 tables going at Winstar, and 24/46 at SHRT (and it's an hour later at Tampa--I expect they had more tables an hour ago). There's also a 5/t going on at SHRT but not at Winstar. Same number of 2/5 tables.

I have a small sample size but FWIW the games I played at HR in Tampa had good action during the week. At night anyway (I didn't play any before 5PM). At Winstar the action sucked during the week even late at night. I played until 6AM two nights at HR and both nights the table was all rec players (as far as I could tell) and several were drunk. A couple got massages (while playing!) and were practically drooling on the table. I also played until about 5AM a couple nights at Winstar and until 3 or 4 a couple more. During the week it was just regs. Night was no better than the day. Maybe worse. Tuesdays they have the Aces cracked thingy during the day. Thursdays are better than the other weekdays because they also run Aces Cracked then, plus I figure a lot of people visiting go for a long weekend. Weekend nights are pretty good at Winstar though.

Anyway I play 10 hour sessions at night so there's no issue with me playing Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday from like 7PM to 5AM.

I'd do basically the same schedule at Winstar except start a little earlier, as a lot of recreational players leave around 3 AM. So I'd do like 5PM to 3AM there, but same days.

Also I've treated my poker "vacations" exactly like work, playing 10 hours a day several days in a row. And I've done this all before online. I know what to expect.

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Good luck KAT2T. And sorry I won't be joining you. Though it's probably to your benefit since I'm so awesome. $2/hr fellows. YEAH.

If you play those hours regularly you should do really well. Like really really well.

I think it's funny that anyone is seriously thinking of being a "Live Pro" after only having 50 hrs of live experience. What is that, like 1500 hands?

You should take a month off and give it a try, but only as a test to see if it works out.
Online and live are two different things and some just can't handle the slow pace of live play.

Good luck either way.

I have 50 at Winstar specifically. I have living expenses saved for a year and BR around 14k. So I have a year to learn to beat 1/2, playing full time, even if I'm not already there, which I'm pretty sure I am. If I can't learn to beat 1/2 over 2000 hours then I'm an idiot. I'm not an idiot. But we'll see how it goes.

Tell us when you'll be back at Winstar buddy and you'll find out. Oh wait I don't play 1/2. Damn.

Just out of personal curiosity how many hands of uNL have you played online? I would ask this same question of the poster KAT2T who said he's going to try to become a live pro.

no offense but "beating 1/2" should already be in the bag and certainly is no way to fund a meaningful life. i'm not trying to be a dick here but figuring in a year to find a way to beat that game is a losing proposition. you should already be there. frankly the 1/2 is so pathetic i find it hard to beat while waiting for a 2/5 table cuz i just cannot fold out waiting to 3! to $12. that game is for ppl to have fun. if you don't already have their 1/3 smashed and at least mixing it in with 2/5 it's hopeless. even grinding 2/5 for a living sounds like dead end unless you're working other long term non poker projects on the side

edit: that came off harsh. but you should still take heed

So I guess you're just going to troll me indefinitely then?

3-4 million

My goal isn't to beat 1/2. It's to beat 2/5 and higher. But I want a large sample size of 1/2 before moving up. I'm pretty sure I'm already beating 1/2. I haven't found a table yet where I didn't seem like the best player or rarely second best, but that could be ego talking.

I hope to be at 2/5 by the end of the calendar year. I was just pointing out my worst case scenario is having a year of full-time playing and learning and still somehow losing at 1/2 *after* the year of training, which I simply cannot see happening, though TexasLexus seems confident this will be the result. See, I hurt his feelings joking about stereotypes of Texans with a Swedish girl (I'm a Texan BTW), so I must be terrible at poker. Logical, right?

And who 3-bets to $12 in 1/2?? Standard raises are higher than that.

Not even close bud. You're terrible at poker because you always come up with excuses as to why you can't win at 1/2.

And who 3-bets to $12 in 1/2?? Standard raises are higher than that.[/QUOTE]


*i assumed it was clear i was trying to drive home a point about how small and nitty the game is. apparently you are more of the literal type

I was at a 1/2 table a few weeks ago where UTG opened to $6, got 3 coldcallers and the BTN (a woman to my left) 3-bet to $12. I don't remember the rest of the hand but the woman to my left ended up showing KK. Later in the session I opened 99 for $10 from UTG+2 and she min-3-bet me to $20. Remembering the earlier hand I said "I believe you!" and folded (I was playing too short a stack to call and setmine). She politely showed me KK.

I guess it occasionally happens, though at Winstar the standard raise is like 15. I did get 8th_street's point--I just asked the question as a random aside, thinking maybe he made a typo.

Any chance of a 5-10 game popping off on a tues, weds, or thurs? Driving through soon

They sometimes go during weekday evenings, particularly Thursdays. There's a 5/t game running right now actually. You should check on Bravo Poker App and you can see whether there's a 5/t running and the number of interested players if not. I'd say Thursdays are definitely your best bet for weekdays, then Tuesdays.

Do people consistently bet 3bb at 1/2? I've been playing mostly 1/3 where there are consistent 5-7bb raises. Even when I played 1/2 @ MCC in Detroit, I never once seen a 3bb raise pf.

TR: arrive Friday at 9 p.m., was number 12 on the 1/3 list so they opened up a new table. I sat and it seemed like literally everyone knew each other at the table. I just played my game and slowly built up to around $600. I ended up getting river and coolered a couple of times and was down to about 250 at 3 a.m. when our table broke up. I had become very friendly with the guy to my left who I had taken about 250 off of very early on. So there was me him and his buddy on the other side of the table and we were debating going to sit at 1/2 until we realized we couldn't bring our whole stacks. So we broke up and I went inside at one table and they said at another table.

I would have normally went home at this time but I drove from Midland and was sleeping in my van and I wouldn't be able to sleep I wasn't tired so I just stayed and played. Well about 15 to 20 minutes later my buddy came back and sat at my table even though there was more action at the other table. Well about an hour later this happened



BBJ was 48k, 24k to loser, 14k to winner, 2 guys had missed their BB and were away from the table, so 5 of us got $1900 each.

Took 2 hours to get paid. Went and slept at 7 am for 3.5 hours. Went and ate and cleaned up. Sat down and there were a tonne of seniors playing, flopped 2 sets and was up to about $530, then slowly lost and cashed out $130.

Went to Dallas and spent a hundo on hookers, sadly no blow was found.

I'm jealous.